European Union (EU) is an economic and political community of twenty eight countries that located in Europe. Since its inception in 1958, the union has grown into a powerful regional body with great influence on member states and strong governance structures. Membership to EU comes with a number of advantages and disadvantages. First, EU promotes trade among member states and other nations in the following ways. First, a free trade zone enables the traders from member states to import and export products and services under favorable economic conditions such as reduced terrific and bureaucratic procedures. Second, EU provides a large market of about 500 million people for products and services produced by member states. Third, EU membership boosts the competitiveness of member states products. Fourth, the use single currency minimizes transaction costs and eliminates the losses incurred due to currency fluctuations. Second, EU promotes economic development, growth and stability of member states. The development is achieved through a number of ways. First, EU makes it easier for the movement of both labor and capital among member states (Liebscher, Oesterreichische Nationalbank & Conference on European Economic Integration, 2007). The union has an investment policy that encourages citizens from member states to invest across the region. Besides, less stringent work permit regulations facilitate transfer of high skilled labor among member states. Second, EU has a huge development fund that is used for financing grand infrastructural products such as railway lines, highways, seaports and airports. Third, member states can access credit facilities from EU to stabilize their economies during the economic crisis. For instance, billions of Euros was given to Greece in 2010 to prevent its economy from collapsing. Despite the advantages, there are also some disadvantages of EU membership. First, EU is a very powerful union that at times infringes on the sovereign right of member states and rights of individuals (.Sevastik, 2013). EU has a parliament that makes laws that are implemented by member states. Sometimes, EU parliament makes laws, regulations and policies that are not in agreement with the constitution and laws of member states. This situation hampers the implementation of the legislation. More importantly, it is an encroachment of country’s sovereignty. Again, the EU citizens are not always consulted when decisions are made by the institutions such as the European Council. Consequently, EU has taken away the right of the citizen to make decisions. For this reason, the union is often referred to as undemocratic. Second, the integration has made the economies very susceptible to economic and labor crisis. The member countries have no choice but to work together to solve their partners economic problems. This has brought a situation where every member problems is other members’ problems. This was witnessed in 2009 when the European countries experienced economic crisis brought about by failure of few of their members to service their sovereign debts without the aid from other members. The economic growth of EU members slumped downwards because they had highly integrated economies. Again, countries such as Germany and France spent substantial amount of Euros to bail out Greece. Apart from financial problems, EU member states are vulnerable to the labor crisis. EU policies promote movement of people within its member states. This policy has resulted into migration of highly skilled labor from relatively poor countries to developed countries in Western Europe. This phenomenon creates labor problems to EU members.
References
Liebscher, K., Oesterreichische Nationalbank., & Conference on European Economic Integration. (2007). Foreign direct investment in Europe: A changing landscape. Cheltenham, UK: E. Elgar.
Sevastik, P. (2013). Aspects of Sovereignty: Sino-Swedish Reflections. Leiden: BRILL.
